“There was a period, when making the record, that I was in a really bad place,” Smith told John during the interview for Attitude magazine (via Billboard). “I got dumped, which wasn’t very nice. Writing music about that kind of thing is normally like therapy for me, but when I got dumped this time ’round I just couldn’t write for about two months… My team had to force me to get into the studio, because I almost felt as if I didn’t want to do it any more. So, there were moments on there where it got a bit intense and I started to lose myself.”

Smith’s struggles to return to music is just one of many subjects he covers with Elton John, with the two talking about Smith’s onstage flub at the Oscars when he claimed to be the first openly gay man to win the award, as well as the healthy competition he feels with Ed Sheeran.

“It makes you push yourself,” Smith said of Sheeran’s success. “Watching him this past year has just been incredible, but yeah, of course it makes me hungry.”